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Self-Medication (Venture Bros. episode)
Self-Medication is an episode of the series The Venture Bros. Plot This episode begins with Dr. Venture fleeing the compound from the Monarch and his flying cocoon. Dr Venture makes it to the roof, but falls off to his doom. He is caught by several ropes shooting out from a giant robotic hand on the cocoon. The Monarch treats Dr Venture as a puppet, using the ropes to control his limbs and make him dance. As it seems the Monarch finally has Dr. Venture, an alarm goes off. Dr Venture checks his watch and tells the Monarch that he has a therapy session. The Monarch checks the new Mental Health Clause of the Guild's rules and confirms that a villain must release his arch if they have to receive psychiatric help. The Monarch calls off his henchmen, and they release the Venture Brothers and Sergeant Hatred. #21 tells Sgt. Hatred that he got lucky this time, and that he owed him one. The next scene flashes back to when Dr. (Rusty) Venture was a child seemingly talking to a therapist. He talks about how he can't make friends his own age, that he's always around adults who want to kidnap him, and that he doesn't even want to be a super scientist. As he speaks his father Dr. Jonas Venture (apparently acting as his therapist) sneaks back into the room and pretends as if he had been there the whole time. He criticizes Rusty for blaming all his problems on his father. The scene transitions back to the present where Dr. Venture is talking to a real therapist. Apparently he is in a group therapy session for former “Boy Adventurers”. Among them are Action Johnny, a former aged Wonder Boy (Patton Oswalt), two former boy detectives Lance & Dale Hale (Seth Green & John Hodgman) (parodies of The Hardy Boys with elements of Lyle and Erik Menendez), and a robot named Ro-Boy (a parody of Rusty the Boy Robot and Astro Boy). They each introduce themselves to Dr. Venture and talk about their problems. Meanwhile Sgt. Hatred, the Venture Brothers, and the Monarch's henchmen go to see a movie. Sgt. Hatred notices that the theater has a lot of young children and starts to worry about his "condition." At discovering the movie involves elves that are eternally in the bodies of feminine 13 year old boys, Hatred asks "What, did Henry Darger write this?" Meanwhile Hank complains about the henchmen's butterfly wings being in the way of the movie. The therapist is using puppet therapy on Action Johnny to help him deal with his issues. When Dr. Venture walks up for his turn the Therapist seemingly gets a charlie horse, but then spasms to the floor and dies. As they inspect the body, a viper slithers out of the Therapist's pants (Johnny says it's an Vietnamese Two-Step Viper but the others say its an urban myth, confirming via googling it on a PDA) and attacks Dr. Venture who is holding the doctor's coffee cup which contains snake pheromones. Dr. Venture spills it on Wonder Boy, who runs around the room. Ro-Boy wakes up (after accidentally rebooting himself) and kills the snake with his laser eyes. The therapy group decides to try and solve the Therapist's murder, finding a matchbook that Johnny recognizes. They travel to the bar, where Johnny notices a former henchman of Dr. Z. After the group gets involved in a bar brawl, they then travel to Dr. Z's home, and Johnny confronts him believing he killed their therapist, but Dr. Z denies it. Dr. Z's wife invites everyone to dinner. Dr. Z tells them they need to grow up and to stop living in the past. Dr. Z and his wife (Seth Green) lament that they were unable to have children, but Ro-Boy asks them if they would be willing to adopt him. Dr. Venture thanks them for helping him to realize he doesn't need therapy, despite his childhood, he has moved on from it (as he has his own business and family). Meanwhile, Sgt. Hatred has left the movie due to running out of Nomolestol, his anti-pedophilia drug from the OSI. He has returned to the Venture Compound and locked himself in the panic room. Dean and Hank try to convince him to come out, but he refuses. Hank gets an idea to dress like Princess Tinyfeet to lure Hatred out of the panic room. Hatred comes out of the panic room only to be tranquilized by #21 & his squad. 21 thanks Hank for giving him a shot at Hatred, referring to 21's earlier comment at the beginning of the episode. In the post credits sequence, at the Monarch's cocoon, 21 talks to 24's skull about the movie he just saw when the Monarch visits him in his room. 21 covers the skull with his boot and the Monarch asks if he was alone. 21 responds by saying he was podcasting and they briefly discuss the movie. Before the Monarch leaves, he inquires if 21's mission was a success. Their conversation reveals the Monarch and 21 are responsible for the Therapist's death (allowing him to continue arching Dr. Venture without any possible interference). Connection to other episodes *It is revealed it was Sgt. Hatred's love for Princess Tinyfeet that controlled his pedophiliac urges before the OSI chemical treatments. *Action Johnny returns and is shown to be more emotionally balanced and further along on his recovery from drug addiction. However has clearly not gotten over it yet, as he was stealing the therapist's prescription pad after he was killed. *Dr. Z, a former antagonist of Action Johnny, returns from his appearance in The Buddy System. *Action Johnny talks to Dr.Venture about encounters with Daphne and Velma and mentions that he caught Herpes from the latter. *The Therapist in this episode has the same voice and similar appearance to the one in Powerless in the Face of Death but his hair and beard are grayer. *21 is once again seen talking to the charred skull of 24 in his room. *The Monarch has used a venomous snake as an implement of (attempted) murder before, as seen in the stinger of The Doctor is Sin. Cultural References * Ro-Boy is a parody of Astro Boy, though his design resembles Mega Man and Rusty from Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. * It is implied that the movie the henchmen and Venture brothers watched was referenced in Showdown at Cremation Creek and is based off of the Lord Of The Rings and Chronicles of Narnia. The reference 21 makes to the golden boat with all of the previous characters mirrors the ending of the Narnia series. * In the scene where the therapy group gets into a bar fight, their actions are displayed on screen. This is a parody of the live-action Batman television program. * The Hale Brothers (Lance & Dale) are parodies of The Hardy Boys with elements of Lyle and Erik Menendez. * In the movie theater, Sgt. Hatred compares the film's transgenderist theme to the work of outsider novelist Henry Darger, while the overall structure of the movie series, as well as its alluded plot and title ("Realm of the Rings"), resembles that of the Peter Jackson adaptations of Lord of the Rings *The therapist's office where Dr. Venture seeks treatment bears resemblance to the office used by Dr. Melfi on the Sopranos. Production Notes *One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "Self-Medication" the credit reads Kimson "Beep-Boop" Albert. Category:The Venture Bros. episodes